It was Einstein who said that “you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it,” and the same principle applies to realizing Enlightenment. Basically all the obstacles that limit your consciousness from experiencing your reality in a different way (which is essentially what Enlightenment is) need to be changed from the inside out. The mind that doesn’t believe in or know about Enlightenment needs to start believing and knowing – big time. This is the belief that gets the engine moving and keeps it moving. Through belief a person can then take the logical steps to seeking knowledge, gaining practice and having real experience of Enlightenment.

Through cultivating a different state of mind, a person will find that the old mind has been left behind. Doubt and self-criticism hold value, but they cease to exist as limiting beliefs in the Enlightened mind. As “light” moves in darkness must change – this is natural law.

All esoteric training has some element of “no-mind” practice and the reason for this is because the mind that is always thinking will always delude itself into believing it has the answers. It will “discover” new knowledge and seemingly understand new perspectives – but all along these perspectives are being seen from the same eyes and mind.

This is the same mind.

The practice of “no-mind” is a shift into a completely different state and it is this state that offers true expansion of consciousness because instead of simply rehashing and re-shuffling old material – it steps out into the new.

And so the old is changed.

Now it does people little good to walk around all day in “no-mind” but the trick is to be the “master” mind. That is to have the ability to stop, move, shift and shuffle at will. It’s not so unlike dancing – and just like the master dancer’s body changes so that even walking and breathing is performed differently, so must the mind to know Enlightenment also change and find a new way.

John Gregor